1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system and in particular to a method and apparatus for processing data. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code for managing data processing systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Businesses and other organizations are creating and maintaining increasingly complex heterogeneous server environments. Many of these environments may include different physical and virtual data processing systems to provide the computing power to service the requests made by clients. Many of these systems are becoming more virtualized in which operating systems lose visibility and control of the hardware in the data processing systems. To handle these two types of structures, heterogeneous and virtualization, hardware control points have been introduced.
A hardware control point is a device that coordinates operations across multiple operating system images and different types of data processing systems in a server environment. This type of device provides a point of control to manage physical hardware providing server services as well as the virtual server systems. Hardware control points provide management functions, which include configuring and maintaining the different types of servers within the server environment. A hardware control point is also referred to as a console or management console. Hardware control points provide a common user and programming interface to configure and maintain server systems. An example of a common function of a hardware control point is to begin management of a newly discovered server data processing system.